1.4: What is this gaming thing? Part 1

Many of us grew up playing boardgames--Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Memory--these are generally the games we were introduced to, and often enough enjoyed. But we grew up and our opinion of these games changed. Even by our early teens we had decided that these games were horrible--Candyland could take hours to end as your character, three spaces from the end, was called back to Gumdrop Lane all the way at the start of the path. The same with Chutes and Ladders--why, why did they make space #99 a slide that goes all the way back to the start? And Memory...well, really, how many times do you want to find those same two dogs or chickens or whatever?

And so we moved away from boardgames, maybe on occasion playing Sorry! (yes, the title has an exclamation point in it), Monopoly, Risk. But even these had their problems--Monopoly and Sorry! are both very simple "roll and move" type games, a random number determining how far you moved a piece along a circular track. And Risk--sure, you got to kick your friends' collective butts, but the randomness of the dice greatly outweighs any attempts at strategy.

And so most of us put boardgames behind us completely.